The following is a joint NGO statement delivered by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies at the Item 7 Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 during the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council. 

Our organizations welcome the historic report by the Special Rapporteur, which concludes that Israeli authorities are committing the crime of apartheid. His conclusion should serve as a wakeup call for governments throughout the world.

The Rapporteur’s study of apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967 reflects the larger reality of Israel’s apartheid regime over the Palestinian people as a whole. Since 1948, Israel has established and maintained an apartheid regime over the Palestinian people regardless of their geographic location, including Palestinian refugees denied their right of return to their homes, lands, and properties.

Double standards on this matter, including those propagated by Europe and the United States, severely undermine the effectiveness and legitimacy of international human rights and humanitarian legal standards.

For 73 years, the international community has enabled Israeli impunity and failed to hold Israeli perpetrators accountable for serious crimes against Palestinians.  Accountability is long overdue.

With the start of the Nakba in 1948, 85% of the Palestinian people became refugees and internally displaced. The newly established State of Israel in historic Palestine installed a legal regime to institutionalize the dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian people. Following the military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip since 1967, Israel extended and operationalized its apartheid system in the oPt.

To maintain its apartheid regime, Israel resorts to a wide range of repressive policies to subjugate and control Palestinians, including arbitrary detention, excessive use of force, torture, collective punishment, persecution of human rights defenders and organizations, and structural violence preventing Palestinians’ full enjoyment of their human rights, amounting to inhuman acts of apartheid.

The Rapporteur identified the strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people as a “central strategy” of Israeli apartheid. By dividing the Palestinian people into, at least, four separate geographic, legal, and political categories, Israel ensures that Palestinians cannot meet, group, live together, or exercise any collective rights, particularly their right to self-determination.

We reiterate the need for effective measures to dismantle Israeli apartheid, as put forward by the Special Rapporteur and civil society, including for UN member states to recognize Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian people, the reconstitution of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid, the ratification and/or implementation of the Convention against Apartheid and accountability at the International Criminal Court and in the courts of third states.

It is time to act to adopt effective measures, including sanctions, to end Israeli apartheid.

Signatories

1. 11.11
2. Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
3. Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights
4. Alfoukhary association for rural development
5. Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man
6. Artists for Palestine UK
7. Asociación Paz con Dignidad
8. Association Belgo-Palestinienne WB
9. Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine (AURDIP)
10. Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS)
11. Association tunisienne des femmes démocrates
12. Australia Palestine Advocacy Network
13. Australians for Palestine
14. Baytna
15. Belgian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (BACBI)
16. Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Australia (BDS Australia)
17. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
18. Canada Palestine Association
19. Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME)
20. Chicago Faith Coalition on Middle East Policy
21. CNCD-11.11.11
22. Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine (Sydney)
23. Comité pour une Paix juste au Proche-Orient, Luxembourg
24. Defence for Children International
25. Defender Center for Human Rights
26. Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)
27. docP – BDS Netherlands
28. ECCP – European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine
29. Episcopal Peace Fellowship
30. Episcopal Peace Fellowship – Palestine Israel Network
31. European Trade Union Network for Justice in Palestine
32. Fagforbundet
33. Fares Al-Arab for Development and Charity Works
34. FILEF – Italian Federation of Migrant Workers and their Families – Australia
35. France Palestine Mental Health Network
36. Friends of Hebron Sydney
37. Friends of Sabeel North America
38. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
39. Housing and Land Rights Network – Habitat International Coalition
40. Human Rights and democratic participation Center “SHAMS”
41. ICAHD UK (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions)
42. International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights (ICSPR)
43. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
44. International Human Rights Network
45. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
46. International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW AP)
47. Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
48. Irish Congress of Trade Unions
49. Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
50. Justice for Palestinians, Calgary
51. Justitia Center for legal protection or Human Rights in Algeria
52. Kairos Sabeel Netherlands
53. Kenya Human Rights Commission
54. MADRE
55. Makan
56. Mwatana for Human Rights
57. Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine-Israel (NMJPI)
58. North Bronx Racial Justice
59. Oakville Palestinian Rights Association
60. Odhikar
61. PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity)
62. Palestine Solidarity Campaign – Cape Town
63. Palestinian Assembly for Liberation
64. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
65. Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP)
66. Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall)
67. Palestinian Land Defense Coalition
68. Sadaka-the Ireland Palestine Alliance
69. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
70. Scottish Friends of Palestine
71. Scottish Palestinian Forum
72. Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine
73. Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign
74. South African BDS Coalition
75. Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
76. The Association of Norwegian NGOs for Palestine
77. The Canadian BDS Coalition
78. The Community Action Center / Al Quds University
79. The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy
80. The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy – MIFTAH
81. The Southwest Coalition for Palestine
82. Trócaire
83. Union syndicale Solidaires
84. UNITED NETWORK FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE IN PALESTINE/ISRAEL
85. Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights
86. Visualizing Impact
87. WESPAC Foundation
88. Women in Black Vienna
89. Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC)
90. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)